Abstract

DETAIL: What animated you to investigate the failure of megaprojects?

FLYVBJERG: This was triggered off by the Great Belt project in Denmark. The Great Belt is a strait between the two largest islands of the country, which were to be linked in the late 1980s. An underwater tunnel was built – the second largest in Europe – and what was the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. In the end, the whole project cost 17 times more than any other building scheme ever undertaken in Denmark. It was an enormous leap in scale in every respect, and everything went wrong. The tunnel was flooded and caught fire, and the costs and time planning got completely out of control I asked myself whether that was normal or just a stroke of bad luck – or were the Danes particularly stupid? But there was virtually no research on what happens in large-scale schemes. Projects costing billions were being undertaken throughout the world, and there were no reliable data. That made me think.